Laughter rang through the rock formations on a bright June morning. A blond child of no more than four years was playing in one of the rock outcrops that made up his home.
"Grampa! Come see what I made!" An older man of about sixty emerged from a nearby house, eager to see the latest work of his grandson. When he arrived at the boy's side, the child pointed at two birds flying around the rocks. He puffed out his chest in pride and raced through
" Grampa see look, I made them all by myself they can fly now and they couldn't fly before I just did what daddy said and they, they didn't work the first twenty times but I worked really hard and I got really angry that they weren't working and I almost gave up but I didn't give up and do you like them Grampa?"
"Wait up, Deidara, I barely heard a single word! Maybe they should call you the Yellow Flash. What did you say?" Still too fast, he tried explaining again
"I made the birds fly I did it and. . ." realizing his speed by the confused look on his grandfather's face, he tried to slow up his speech. Unfortunately he tried too hard. " aaaannnnddd. . . IIIIIII. . . cccooouuullldddnnn'ttt. . . fffooorrr. . . aaa. . . lllooonnnggg. . . tttiiimmmeee." He hoped he had reached the correct speed. Again the countenance of his grandfather told him he had overdone it. "That was too slow, and before it was too fast, if I find the middle maybe, hmmm. The first speed was something like 'blablablablablablablablablablablabla' and if I slow that 'blablablablablabla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bbblllaaa. . . bbblllaaa. . . bbblllaaa. . . bb' no that's the second one, so maybe 'bla, bla, bla, bla, bla.'. We'll see what Grampa says." During this soliloquy, one of Deidara's birds landed on "Grampa"'s shoulder and in looking at it, he began to marvel at the realisticness of it, especially coming from a toddler. It rivaled that of Deidara's father at four years old!
"Wow Deidara, this is really good! Did you make this by yourself?"
"Uh-huh!"
"You deserve a special treat for this."
"Oooo I hope it's an apple!" thought Deidara. He absolutely adored the fruit, but for some reason, nobody seemed to ever have any. As he walked inside with "Grampa" and his birds, he thought about the recurring dream that he'd been having.
He was in a big grassy field standing before an apple tree. He would stare longingly at the multitude of apples on the tree, his mouth would water, and his stomach would grumble, but alas, no apple could be reached. Defeated, he would collapse on to the ground, sobbing, and wailing "APPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!" . Suddenly he would feel a tap on his shoulder. Turning he would see something that would make him beam, quite literally, he would perk up and glow. He would see a winged apple that would whisper "Deidara-sama, enjoy my juicy goodness." and it would fly to his mouth and feed itself to him. As he would eat this apple, he heard little whispers coming from everywhere. He looked around and saw that every apple was doing the same thing, even fighting over who would be eaten first! "Deidara-sama. . . Deidara-sama. . . Deidara-sama. . ." "Deidara, Deidara, DEIDARA!!" "Grampa" brought Deidara out of his reverie.
"Deidara, which color apple do you want, red and green or yellow?"
"Red and green, Grampa." Grampa sat down at the table, and handed Deidara his apple. Just about to take a bite from his own apple, he turned, surprised to see Deidara looking inquisitively at his apple.
"Deidara, it looks like you have a question."
"Grampa, why are there so few apples around here?" Grampa's face turned from bright to troubled. He'd known that sooner or later he'd have to explain their situation to his grandson, but he just wasn't sure how to do so.
"Grampa? Grampa? Grampa? Tell me!" asked Deidara with all the impatience of a toddler. At last Grampa came up with a way.
"You see. . ."
"What took you so long!?"
"It's very impolite to interrupt, Deidara."
"Sorry"
"Well, the apples that we don't come from here. They come from the Fire country."
"What's that?"
"Our world is made up of many pieces, countries. There are five big countries; Earth, where we live, Fire, were these apples are from, Lightning, Water, and Wind, and many smaller ones. You see, the Earth and Fire are fighting right now. If we got apples from them, we would be helping the bad guys. You wouldn't want to do that now would you?"
"(Gasp) No! Never! But Grampa, how did we get these?" putting his apple on the table, next to Grampa's which Grampa didn't even realize that he put down.
"It only helps them if you pick them after asking. We didn't help them, because these were picked without asking." Deidara picked up his apple.
"That's good." and he took a huge bite. Amidst the crunching noises of Deidara chewing, he barely heard
". . . you should thank Ichigo-san next door, she just returned with these apples." He swallowed, and heard the rest of Grampa's sentence ". . . and gave some to me, knowing that you love them." In a sudden realization, Deidara said
"If we are fighting the Fire country, is that where Mommy and Daddy and Uncle Jin are now?"
"Yes." Deidara's parents, Kaoru and Ryu, had left about two weeks prior and had left him with her father, Aki. Deidara was very upset, and had thought up all the worst-case scenarios possible for a four year old as to why his parents left, since up until now, nobody would tell him where they went.
"Yay! Now I know they didn't leave me forever!" he thought excitedly. "But wait. . ." "Grampa, will Mommy, Daddy and Jin be ok?" "I hope so, Deidara, I hope so.